Xbox Had a Few Announcements at the Windows 10 Event Too

Pity poor Xbox: It got lost in all the excitement around Microsoft’s controversial Surface Studio and the Windows 10 Creators Update. But there’s some cool Xbox news too.

“As part of the Windows 10 Creator’s Update, Microsoft introduced more Windows 10 features designed for gamers that offer more ways to connect, compete and play together on Xbox Live – the fastest and most reliable gaming network,” a Microsoft representative told me.

Beam integration

Platform support: Windows 10 and Xbox One

A Twitch competitor, Beam lets you watch live game streams and interact with those broadcasting their games. But it also lets you become a broadcast, hence this feature’s appearance at the Creators event. Beam support is being built into Windows 10 with the Creators Update, and into Xbox One. On Windows 10, you will be able to display the Game Bar, click the Beam button, and then share your gameplay in real time–i.e broadcast it—either with a couple of friends or a massive audience. That’s really neat.

Gamer-created tournaments on Arena

Platform support: Windows 10 and Xbox One

Arena is Microsoft’s new eSports play, and like Beam, the advantage here is that Microsoft is making this capability broadly available to anyone on Windows 10 or Xbox. At the event this week, Microsoft announced gamer-generated tournaments for Arena on Xbox Live, meaning that anyone can configure their own tournament style, invited friends, and so on across devices.

Bitstream audio pass-through

Platform support: Xbox One

In a coming update, Xbox One will gain bitstream audio pass-through, including Dolby Atmos. It’s not clear yet if this is only for Blu-ray discs, but it appears so.

Also, I spoke with Terry Myerson after the event and he suggested that whatever Xbox update or updates that do ship around the Creators Update time frame will not necessarily be related to that update, and will most certainly not be called the Creators Update. This is a bit of a departure from Xbox’s update schedule in 2016, which included a number of platform and functional features from both Windows 10 1511 and 1607. Though, of course, Xbox didn’t use the Anniversary Update naming convention either.

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I get that you have questions about the Surface Studio. But calling it controversial?

Why is it controversial? Because you or some other media type says it is? If that is the case, then anything a tech company produces is controversial. Why is it controversial that Microsoft wants to produce a state of the art product for its constumers, even if the market may be niche? Why is it controiversial that Microsoft wants to innovate in new ways or produce new product categories? Why is it controversial that Microsoft wants to push the tech envelop and have its OEMs dream big? Isn't that what a innovative technology leading company does?

Labeling the Studio as risky, or potentially only a niche product I get. But not controversial. This product shows Microsoft is willing to push boundaries. It may well provide, even if a niche product, a halo effect. All good things.

If a product is risky and targeting a niche market, isn't that a justified reason for there to be controversy around it and whether or not it makes sense for it to exist in the first place? I thought "controversial" applied there. Obviously not in the sense that this is going to murder innocent puppies, but by your concessions, I think it fits.

Great points, Mark. Controversial is not the word to use, convtroversial might have been the word to use describe when Surface RT launched, but we all know Surface's strategy of today is vastly different from back then. The only controversial thing about the the Surface Studio is perhaps the pricing, which, again, we all know is marked up on purpose so that OEMs don't get into a pissing contest with Microsoft again.

No I'm not. And if you are a regular, you know I have been very critical of Microsoft. Paul has been critical of many aspects of Microsoft, justifiably. But to use the word controversial to describe something that reflects Microsoft being inovative is wrong. Words do matter.

Didn't they explicitly say during the presentation that there will be a Creative Update for the Xbox One? Specifically promising the Blu-ray Dolby Atmos to be delivered in the Creative Update for Xbox One. Seems they still have a messaging problem around whether Xbox One really is part of the Windows 10 universal platform, or the Xbox team is unwilling to assimilate fully.

Honestly if you don't have XBOX One, this brings very little for gaming. Nvidia Geforce Experience along with Steam is much better solution and also gaming on Windows 7 is better, good mgpu support and frames are generally equal or higher. We all know by now that DX12 is just a business gimmick, with no real advantage over DX11 by any means.

I exactly know what i am talking about. Gaming under Windows 7 is faster/better than on Windows 10, Nvidia 1080 video card. Also Geforce Experience gives you better game recording quality and also gives you option of broadcasting the game and streaming to other home devices. Along with the Steam it is just better gaming solution for PC. DX12 is just a gimmick, no game showed any performance advantage over DX11, contrary. You people need to get your head out of ass, and stop believing bullshit you hear especially from MS.

If you upgraded to Windows 10 just because you believe gaming is better on it...oh boy you made a mistake.

I agree. D12 is DX11 + Mantle API AMD came up with to fix their shitty performance since they have no clue how to optimize drivers. At the end it is still < than Nvidia. A true difference between DX11 and DX12 is reflected through Nvidia Pascal architecture which clearly shows there are no differences in anything, contrary. Therefore, my gaming experience under Windows 7 and Nvidia 1080 SLI is hell of fun.

DX12 is not a bust. DX12 is about scaling in ways that DX11 doesn't scale. That's like taking a 3.0GHz single-core CPU and comparing it to a 2.4GHz quad-core CPU and saying that multi-core is a bust because it's slower on a single-threaded app. To say it's a bust is simply not true - it just scales in ways different than what you're used to. Software used to never be multi-threaded and the software was a fail until developers got good at creating multi-threaded software. Same thing for DX12. Until it matures a bit, you're simply not going to see the benefits from the platform. The laws of physics are forcing us to find new ways to scale than what we have always been able to do before (smaller + more power + more cooling).

That's the game's fault, and game developers don't want to break compatibility with DX11 because people like you are holding back on upgrading, so DX12 games still run similarly on DX11. 3DMark has a benchmark that shows the performance increases that can be achieved with DX12. Both AMD and Nvidia have talked about it new DX12 features that are important for the future of gaming on PCs. If you think only Microsoft is saying it, you're wrong. And ignorant.

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